The Devil’s Due

by Boucher, Rita

  Kate glanced at her bow and the quiver beside it. There would be no time to string it, much less nock an arrow, and the door to the tower was kept locked and too decrepit to deter a determined pursuer for long. Even if she could find safe passage among the ruins in the dark, there would be no gaining time by luring him up there. Swiftly but carefully, she made her way across the room to the mantle and reached for the ancient flintlock, grabbing it, the shot and the powder horn. In their scavenging search of the castle, she had found the rifle and bow hidden, wrapped in oilcloth in a corner of the tower. Although the flintlock was far heavier than the weapons her father had taught her to shoot, in their situation, she had deemed any weapons better than none and spent many precious hours restoring it.

  Just as she hoped, he ran in after her without heeding his feet. He trod on one of the geese and it rose to peck at his legs, a hissing, angry bundle of feathers protesting its disturbed rest. As he backed away, he slipped on some goat droppings, falling into the nesting hens. They began to cackle in an agitated chorus, waking the rooster to protect his brood and he began to crow. William, the goat, roused from his sleep, bleated irritably. Focusing on the source of the disturbance, the billy lowered his horns to charge the intruder. The stranger scuttled out of the way just in time, placing a chair between himself and the rampaging animal.

  Kate focused on the process of loading, shielding her actions from the intruder’s sight as best she could in the shadows. Despite her fear, she followed each step deliberately, just as she had been taught.

  Always start with dry powder, my girl. She could almost hear her father’s voice as she measured grains from the flask into the muzzle.

  Now tuck in the baby. A cloth wad held the shot tight as she used the rod to ram it home

  She dared to look up just as William wheeled and began yet another attack. The trespasser raised the legs of the chair.

  He edged toward the kitchen door, brandishing the chair as a shield and for a few precious seconds she dared to hope that he might retreat. William gave a bleated battle cry and dashed toward his opponent but at the last moment, the man slipped out of the way, as deftly as a Spanish bullfighter in the ring, letting the goat pass into the other room. The intruder slammed the door closed and turned.

  Powder in the pan, girl, now shut the frizzen.

  She had just finished the priming when the invader started toward her again, a murderous expression on his face. “Do not move,” she warned, raising the heavy weapon with effort. “I know how to use this.” The nanny goats bleated nervously as they heard William’s frustrated cries from beyond the closed door.

  “Do you indeed, Madame,” Duncan said, his lip curling in a mocking grin. “That blunderbuss has not been fired since a Stuart was upon the throne of England and will likely not discharge again until the Jacobites are restored. I stand more chance of being pecked to death than being wounded by that antiquated piece. Now, who are you and what are you doing here?”

  All at once, there was a burst of curses from beyond the door, followed by a retreating bleat. “Roast you on a spit I will,” Fred roared as he burst into the room, decidedly worse for wear, pushing before him a frazzled looking Daisy, her hands bound behind her. “Damned goat tried to turn me into a bleedin’ soprano. Found the woman sleepin’ in the pantry. Damme if she didn’t pop me on me noggin with a skillet. A real Bengal tiger this ‘un is.”

  “A lucky thing your head is so thick,” Duncan commented in amusement.

  “Don’t look to me like you was doin’ too good either,” Fred said, taking in his master’s bedraggled appearance. “Cor!” He looked around him wide-eyed. “It’s Noah’s bleedin’ ark, it is.”

  “Best let her go or I will shoot your compatriot!” The woman declared to Fred, her expression frustrated but determined.

  Fred looked at Duncan in puzzlement.

  “Compatriot is another word for companion, Fred. She says that she will shoot me unless you let the woman go.”

  Fred hesitated, but Duncan shook his head with a chuckle. “There is no need to release your captive. Any hope that she has of firing that antique is merely an exercise in wishful thinking,” Duncan said, stepping directly in front of the muzzle. “I would wager that if there is shot in that old stick, ‘tis gummed in a mass of damp powder.”

  “On the contrary,” the woman said, cocking the trigger. “Years ago, I could get off two shots in a minute, sirrah, but at this range, one will do nicely. Let Daisy go, now!”

  He heard the distinctive sound of the old thunderpipe being readied and hesitated, but when he looked into her eyes he somehow knew that she did not have it within her to kill him. Duncan took a step forward.

  “And even if the powder is dry, I suspect ‘tis as likely to blow up in the female’s face as to discharge a ball into mine.” And if he was wrong, there were last visions far worse than those green depths. “Any rearrangement of my visage is bound to be an improvement. However I would mourn any damage to yours, lovely one.”

  “Looks to me like she knows what she’s about, she does,” Fred protested. “Are you daft, Major?”

  “Many a man has said so,” Duncan kept his voice soft, seeing her hesitation as she regarded him, a silent plea in her gaze. “And you are yet again dismissed, Fred.”

  “I will pull this trigger,” she whispered, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself as much as him. “Do not make me kill you, Major, whoever you are.”

  “Why not, inasmuch as it might be saving the world from villains like myself?” Duncan asked regarding her steadily as he closed the gap between them.

  “I would be most sorry to slay a man who fought for our country,” she replied, honest regret in her voice.

  He felt a stab of admiration. She had courage aplenty this wee warrior, for she stood barely to his shoulder. Who was she? And what was she doing in this hell-hole? “Has no one taught you that only a fool points a weapon if he does not intend to use it?”

  His words startled her. He sounds as if he wants to die. The realization struck her with all the strength of a physical blow as she stared at her advancing nemesis. Now, she told herself, as he stood at the mouth of the gun, the rod of metal the only barrier between the two of them. There was something in that grey depth that held her in thrall. Somehow, she could not bring herself to blast him to Hell.

  Abruptly, the weight of the blunderbuss left her hands and Kate could not keep herself from quivering. She was the very fool he had described. Now they were defenseless because of her cowardice. His arm came around her, supporting her, keeping her from falling down in utter despair.

  “It would not have fired anyway,” the stranger said, as if he somehow felt the need to comfort her. Tears began to slip silently down her cheeks as he rested the stock against a nearby chair. The weapon slipped, discharging as it fell with a roar and a flash.

  As the dust and smoke settled, the intruder eyed the new hole in the wall with curious detachment. “Then again, I have been known to be occasionally wrong,” he said coughing in the smoky cloud.

  “I am sorry, Daisy,” Kate apologized, looking at the other woman in anguish. “I have failed you.”

  “Never, milady,” Daisy declared stoutly, her eyes glistening.

  “Milady?” Duncan asked his eyebrow arching sardonically.

  “I am the late earl’s wife,” Kate said, seizing upon Daisy’s slip of the tongue. “My husband, The MacLean was killed at Badajoz.”

  The man holding Daisy made a strangled sound and the one-eyed stranger gave him a peculiar look before he spoke again.

  “He left you in rather dire circumstances it seems,” he remarked, looking around the moonlit room at the gobbling, bleating crowing circus of feathers and fur. “Or are you merely aping the latest fashion? I have heard that the Duchess of Oldenberg maintains a zoological ménage.”

  “’Twas the storm what knocked down the henhouse, see,” Daisy began to explain, bristling at the implied disparagement of her house
keeping abilities. “And the goat’s pen was near a wreck . . .” Her voice trailed off beneath the one-eyed man’s quelling gaze.

  Her captor’s silent stare sparked Kate’s flagging resolution. Time was passing and Anne might wake to find herself alone in the dark. The child would likely come looking for her. “We have not much,” she said rapidly. “But I will give you the little money that we have if you will leave us in peace.”

  “Money?” Duncan said, feeling strangely fascinated. He could feel her heart pounding a drumming tattoo, belying her courageous facade. She was an excellent liar, but then how many women were not? “Ah yes, money . . . But a trifle compared to the other riches that I have found.” He raised his free hand to brush her cheek. “MacLean’s wife, you say?”

  The woman trembled at his touch. “Take the money and go,” she said, her voice hoarse as his fingers traced the arch of her throat. “I warn you sirrah, the magistrate will deal harshly with a man who trifles with a lord’s wife.”

  “Even a dead lord?” he asked, patent amusement in his voice as he pulled her closer.

  “Especially a dead lord,” she retorted, gasping as he brought her up against the hard length of him. “My husband was a war hero.”

  “Oh, he was a war hero?” Duncan gave Fred a slow wink. The Cockney grinned.

  “Duncan saved his regiment in the battle of Talavera,” she spoke quickly, fighting against his grip, but he just pulled her closer. “They decorated him for valor.”

  That much was true. The wench’s story was getting more interesting by the minute, Duncan thought, enjoying the sensation as she struggled against him. He put his arms around her, savoring her warmth and the faint scent of lavender in her hair.

  “He was killed while trying to overcome a French artillery position in Badajoz” she said, trying to recall all that she could about her late husband’s fallen comrade. “He was blown to pieces, so mangled that there was nearly nothing left for burial.”

  “Is that the story they told?” Duncan asked in amusement. “Surely they could have done far better than that? MacLean was far too intelligent for such foolish heroics, I hear. There was no better man when it came to protecting his hide.”

  “Not always,” Fred said sourly, his comment punctuated by a plaintive bleat from the goats in the corner.

  “Aye, true enough,” Duncan said, his eye flinty as he recalled his failure. “Every man has his flaws.”

  “If you knew of my husband, sir, you certainly ought not to mock,” the woman declared, as his fingers splayed against the small of her back. In the chill of the unlit room, he could feel the warmth of her body burning him like a brand even through the thick stuff of her nightgown. “My husband was The MacLean of Eilean Kirk. Harm me, and I swear his ghost will haunt you.”

  “The MacLean of Eilean Kirk!” Duncan drew back in a mock display of dismay. “Then it is true what they say of MacLeans?”

  “Aye,” Fred’s prisoner pronounced darkly. “‘Tis a pact with the devil they have. The MacLeans come back from the dead, they do, to take vengeance upon their enemies.”

  “How very tiresome!” Duncan cupped his erstwhile wife’s chin with his hand. He could feel her shiver and felt a twinge of regret. He reminded himself that she deserved to be punished for her ridiculous pretense. Had she chosen to tell him the truth, he might well have let her go, but the affront of an outright lie deserved some consequence. “Nonetheless, I have heard that the MacLeans are cursed with the nine lives of a cat. I have also been informed that their taste in women has always been the finest.” He brought his lips down upon hers, tasting the sweetness of that lying mouth.

  It was a kiss meant to frighten. Duncan crushed her to him, ravaging with calculated lust, storming her as if she was a castle under siege, demanding nothing less than total surrender. But somewhere in the midst of the attack, he lost all constraint; premeditated passion was replaced by a strange longing to lose himself in her softness; to pretend for a brief interval that this woman truly desired him, to dispel the utter loneliness that had dogged him for as long as he could remember.

  His harsh and demanding assault was like nothing Kate had ever experienced. She could barely breathe before the bombardment began anew. The stranger’s hands tangled in her hair, keeping her captive. It was shocking to find that a part of her was responding to his caresses, almost eager to explore these new sensations that shook her to her very marrow. There had only been one man in her life and her late husband’s kisses had been perfunctory and gentle, as if she had been some fragile bit of porcelain, delicate enough to break.

  Suddenly, the intruder’s tongue began to plunder, consuming her like a fire raging out of control and every last trace of curiosity was banished. Terror welled up within her, but she knew that she could not give way to her fear. Anne, she reminded herself. Think of Anne.

  Duncan felt her stiffen, begin to struggle against him and he knew that he had achieved his aim. Slowly, reluctantly, he released her expecting to see utter horror in those emerald depths. Instead, there was glittering rage, so strong and feral that he half-expected her to hiss and strike him.

  “Are you quite finished?” Kate asked, wiping her hand across her lips as if to clean them.

  “Leave Kate be, you dirty scum!” Daisy shouted, lunging at Duncan, but her captor held her back.

  “Kate? Like Shakespeare’s shrew? How appropriate. Canna a man even steal a simple kiss, Kate?” Duncan asked, feeling a touch of grudging admiration. She regarded him as if she contemplated spitting in his eye. Pluck to the backbone this one. It seemed that stronger measures might be required to force the truth from her. Gathering up a moonlit handful of her hair, Duncan rubbed it against his cheek. “A damned poor homecoming it seems to me, for a man given up for dead when he cannot even get a mere kiss; but then why settle for a kiss?” He scooped her up in his arms like a rag doll, setting the chickens to squawking as he started for the door.

  “Let me go.” He found it surprising that, despite her obvious fear and rage, Kate did not raise her voice. “They will hang you, I swear they will and if not, I shall kill you with my own hands, but not before I cut off your-” She stopped her struggles abruptly, her eyes growing wide as his words began to penetrate. “Given up for dead?” she repeated. “Homecoming?”

  “Tsk, tsk!” Duncan said, shaking with suppressed laughter. “I must admit that it is no wonder that I have forgotten marrying you, my lady wife, for you seem something of a shrew. Is that why I went off to war, do you think, Fred? Many a man has found the battlefield a more peaceable place than his hearth and the marriage bed.”

  “Aye, ‘tis true enough, Major,” Fred said, trying in vain to stifle a guffaw. “A real spitfire is that wife of yours. Don’t look to be a female that a man would forget real easy though.”

  “True enough,” Duncan said softly. The moonlight cast its alabaster glow on her flawless skin and traced the swollen line of her lips.

  “It cannot be,” she whispered. He could see that the meaning of his words had finally penetrated. She ceased her struggles and regarded him in utter dismay.

  “Ah but it is! Your devoted husband has returned from the valley of the shadow of death!” Duncan proclaimed derisively. His smile was sardonic, his look scathing, as he regarded her searchingly. “Duncan MacLean, at your service, Milady. Now who in bloody hell are you?”

  Chapter 3

  Kate went limp, her eyes rolling, and her lids fluttering closed. A breathy sigh escaped her lips as she fell into a feigned faint. She needed a moment to think, to concoct some kind of story that might satisfy her husband’s former comrade-in arms.

  Their unwilling host would, in all probability, pack the lot of them back to London- or would he? Duncan MacLean had certainly not been typical of Marcus’s acquaintances. There had been more than a hint of envy in her husband’s letters as he had described the “Mad MacLean.” Fast horses, faster women, fortunes won on the turn of a card, were everything that Marcus claimed to loathe
. Yet, he had admired Duncan MacLean and obviously, that friendship had been reciprocated.

  Marcus had been dead for little more than a month when MacLean’s legacy was finally distributed. The well-thumbed copy of Blake’s poems and the MacLean family signet were evidence that the regard was mutual. Indeed, it was the accompanying letter from MacLean’s solicitor mentioning the deserted ruin of the Castle upon Eilean Kirk that had come to mind when she had desperately needed a place to seek shelter.

  His heartbeat thudded beneath her ear with a disturbing rhythm. Kate had always been good at thinking on her feet, but unfortunately, the connection between herself and terra firma had been temporarily severed. Trying to formulate a plan nestled against a man’s chest was deucedly difficult. Her lips could still feel the memory of that insistent pressure. The mingled scents of horse and man trifled with her senses, helping to banish all coherent thought.

  “You brute!” Daisy shrieked. “Frightened the poor dear to death, you have.”

  “A fine performance, Wife,” Duncan whispered softly in Kate’s ear. “But less than credible when the audience literally holds you in the palm of his hand. You are far too tense to be truly unconscious.”

  Kate gave no response, hanging as a dead weight, although the tickle of his breath on her lobe sent cold fingers up her spine. No, she could not tell Duncan MacLean the truth. Rakehell though MacLean might be, Marcus had often spoken of MacLean’s arrow straight sense of honor. If he was like her late husband, he was one of those men who saw a path from fletching to tip without the slightest allowance for any bends in the shaft. It was unlikely that MacLean would credit her if she spoke with candor. At times she found the truth difficult to believe herself.

  “Women have swooned at the sight of me, but you are a trifle late for using the horror of my visage as an excuse,” Duncan murmured, his lips lightly brushing her hair. “Perhaps I am a ghost, come to haunt you, a demon come to claim your lying soul, Lady MacLean.”

  She could not help but tense at his touch and knew that the pretense was over. It was not fair, truly. She had not wished him dead or wounded, but the deserted castle had been like a raft when they were drowning at sea. Now, for Anne’s sake, she had to salvage what she could. They would have to leave England. Belgium perhaps? Not a safe choice; too many people there who knew her or Marcus. Where would they be able to lose themselves? She knew that John would not rest until they were found.